While I have been to each of the Future Led event series being run by our partners Liquid Interactive, the topic this month was one particularly close to my heart. The “Impacts of technology in combating climate change” panel was one I have been looking forward to, and not only because it aligned so closely with what we work to do here at Gaia Resources. Hearing about what new challenges are being overcome and bringing new ideas for future solutions to the table is a great way to build on what we have achieved thus far.

The panel included Dr Julia Playford, Executive Director, Science Development, Department of Environment and Science; Daniel Roberts, Research Director, Energy Technologies, CSIRO; and Amelia St Baker, Digital Lead, Evie Networks. Hearing from Government, Research and applied industry speakers was a great opportunity, and it was also heartening to hear a strain of (mostly) optimism repeated between the three. Another repeating theme was the reminder that conversations across industries will be crucial to us bringing down our emissions and making significant enough changes to our lives to help us to manage climate change.

While there is no doubt that the need for action is real and urgent, we can still find hope in the fact that so many organisations and individuals are recognising that we need to change the ways we live and work. And while it can still feel like an overwhelming task, the tools to assist us are now closer than ever before. More and more we are recognising the urgency of our need to change the ways we live and work, and technology provides us with crucial solutions to address these challenges in new ways.

The panellists raised that solutions will require cross-industry collaborations between groups that traditionally wouldn’t have had a reason to previously partner. We have moved forward from initial discussions arguing the reality of climate change. But still, ensuring that we make the changes necessary requires us all to keep the conversation going, albeit in a new direction. At Gaia Resources, it is important to us that we live our values, and put our money where our mouth is. To ensure that our personal and organisational footprints remain as small as possible, last year we began a partnership with Climate Clever to help us work toward our goal of emission reductions.

Conversations regarding making changes to impact the environment positively are moving away from the “why should we?” into “how do we?”. At Gaia Resources these are the sorts of problems that we love to solve, and the only way to find solutions is by having the conversation. Partnering with Research Projects like the Global Wetlands team to provide new ideas for fish species identification using Artificial Intelligence in response to a challenge set by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) to solve real-word problems. Or with our delivery of the North Australia and Rangelands Fire Information (NAFI) app, bringing fire information resources to the mobile device of land managers in our Top End for accurate and real time information on the go.

Finding these solutions (and even finding the right problems) is something that we can only solve if we keep information and ideas flowing across industries and between stakeholders. Conversations like those being encouraged by events just like the Liquid Interactive Future Led series. It is encouraging to see minds and ideas coming together to talk about what we can do to make positive change. We already have so much of the technology we need at our fingertips that will allow us to improve the environment for future generations to come. The next step is to make sure we bring those solutions to the industries and individuals that need them.

If you want to begin a conversation about how Gaia Resources can help you solve your environmental challenges, reach out and feel free to email me or start a conversation with us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. If you want to join an organisation striving to be part of the solution, please feel free to get in touch or email jobs@gaiaresources.com.au with details of your experience.

Sophie